


Whole

by starscrearn



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Fluff, Forgiveness, M/M, Nightmares, Platonic Cuddling, and they try to deal with them, relationship can be read as platonic or romantic and that's really up to you, swerve has guilt issues after shooting rung, though it tends towards platonic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-17
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-04-24 01:48:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14345415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starscrearn/pseuds/starscrearn
Summary: "How could you do this to me, Swerve?"Swerve's been asking himself that ever since the day with Fort Max, and he's been avoiding Rung for just as long.Unfortunately, it's time they talked.





	Whole

**Author's Note:**

> credit to [MooseKababs](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MooseKababs/pseuds/MooseKababs) for the title and Moose and [Cranky_Tanky](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cranky_Tanky/pseuds/Cranky_Tanky) for reading this over for me. Thanks guys!

Swerve’s commlink crackled.

“Swerve?” said Rodimus.

He shifted, adjusting the rivet gun on his shoulder. “I _think_ he’s in my sights. You realize I’m not that good a shot, right?”

Inside the ship, Fortress Maximus toppled forward, falling to his knees in front of Rung. The psychiatrist immediately reached towards him, straining against the restraints to comfort him.

Rodimus’s voice echoed over the commlink. “Take the shot, Swerve!”

“What? But Max has stopped.”

“Yeah, until he _starts_ again! Now _shoot!”_

“But he’s right next to Rung!” Swerve protested.

_“Shoot!”_ Rodimus bellowed.

Swerve wasn’t consciously aware of his finger closing around the trigger, but he was very aware of the bang and the crack of glass as the rivet drove through it, and he lost his surroundings. Rung lurched back as metal screamed and so did Fort Max. The psychiatrist’s body slumped, severed wires in his neck sparking wildly; pieces of his helm were strewn across the floor. Swerve heard someone yell; maybe it was him. It was probably him.

And then Rung started to move. His limbs began to twitch and slowly, very slowly, he picked himself up and rose out of the chair, ignoring the metal that had been crumpled in around him, holding him in place. Swerve stared, horrified, as Rung’s body staggered towards him. He could see the psychiatrist’s spark whirling frantically in its casing, could smell the corrosion of burnt energon where the explosion had seared his circuits. His arms were stiff at his sides as though he was still bound, fingers curled into claws and tapping erratically against his thighs as he moved.

Finally he spoke, voice deep and rough and crackling with hatred and anger, thick and hot and everything Rung _wasn’t._ “You.”

Swerve fell back. “But--"

“No,” he snapped. “You listen to me, you…”

As Rung continued, his words grew less and less distinct as his voice become more and more like his own. Swerve felt a scrap of metal twist under his heel, but he didn’t look at it. It felt warm and alive and he didn’t want to know what bit of Rung it was.

The psychiatrist sighed, wires in his neck twitching with the phantom exvent, and when he spoke, Swerve recognized the voice as Rung’s. “How could you do this to me, Swerve?”

===========

Swerve jolted awake with the words echoing in his head, lurching up in a panic and searching wildly for Rung. Instead his gaze fell on Red Alert’s empty berth and the fear clutching at his spark turned to hot, wet guilt. Red had been gone for a while now, tucked away on a slab in the morgue. Poetic really, in a sick way-- Red and his psychiatrist both had nearly died in the same manner.

And it was Swerve’s fault. At least, that was what it felt like every time he was happy to open his bar; Rodimus had let him reopen it again after the… incident. That was what it felt like every time he passed Ultra Magnus, now the acting security director on top of his other duties, in the hall. That was what it felt like every time he neared Ratchet, or Rewind, or Whirl, or--

_“How could you do this to me, Swerve?”_

He still hadn’t seen Rung, not since he’d fully recovered.

Skids had gone with him the first time, right after it happened. Somehow they’d almost made Rung look peaceful, even with wires and cables trailing out of his neck, the machines around him humming gently as they toiled to keep him online. Deep beneath his chestplates, his spark turned itself over. Only the barest glimmer of light shone through the sparkglass.

Swerve had placed the model ship next to his shoulder. It was still spattered with Rung’s own energon, smudged where the bot had been tapping at the windows to draw their attention. When no words came to his vocalizer or his processor that seemed appropriate, he’d just left, and Skids with him.

Six weeks later, Rung had woken up on his own, and not recognized anything-- or anyone. It was a blessing, actually, to see nothing but blankness behind those glasses instead of the disgust Swerve was sure Rung felt. First Aid had eased an unmoving Rung up and explained that while the psychiatrist had his eyes open, he wasn’t actually seeing anything meaningful; he couldn’t distinguish between his surroundings and significant objects. First Aid kept his hand against Rung’s backplates as he spoke, holding him steady, and Swerve almost thought he saw the psychiatrist press into the contact. He blinked hard, sidled closer and brushed a hand over Rung’s, not quite sure what he was hoping for. There was a little surge from the bot’s field and it sort of felt like he was trying to move his fingers back against Swerve’s. He jerked away from the slender mech, shaking his hand to rid himself of the feeling.

He would have been more than happy to avoid the medibay entirely after that, until First Aid called him.

“He’s made progress,” the medic had explained. “He’s reacting to changes in his environment at least, but we’re still seen no physical or verbal response from him.”

_Cool,_ Swerve had thought. _So he’s still dead._

What he’d said was, “Why are you telling me? I was a metallurgist, not a-- a helm surgeon.”

“The last time you were in, something you did sparked a response in him. We’re hoping that you might be able to evoke a similar response again.” First Aid sighed. “Unfortunately, in cases like these, the longer it takes to get him moving again, the less likely it is that he’ll move again at all.”

So Swerve had gone, with no idea of what Aid thought he would be able to do that the medical team couldn’t. The answer, it turned out, was talk his ear off.

“Just try to engage him,” Aid had advised. “Talk to him, but don’t be surprised if he doesn’t say anything back. Scans indicate that he’s still in there somewhere, but he’s buried pretty deep.”

Swerve had propped himself up next to Rung’s berth in the side room he’d been assigned and _talked,_ trying to ignore the cramped conditions _._ At some point he stopped being aware of the passage of time as he chattered on about this and that, everything and nothing. Around the third day, he ran out of things to say. Rung still had not reacted, the jerky rise and fall of his chestplates the only indication he was online. One hand had been folded around the model ship Swerve had left him all those weeks ago, and at some point the model had finally been cleaned.

The bartender swallowed, hard, and forced himself to poke at the hand that lay by Rung’s side. No response. He eased it up and slid his fingers under it. “I’m glad you’re, um--” he’d started.

He fell silent again.

“You’re, um-- you’re looking better, Rung. Ratchet and First Aid have been taking real good care of you, so you won’t have to worry about that when you get back.” Swerve shook his head. “I sound like an idiot, don’t I? Well, that’s because I _am_ one. No, don’t deny it, it’s true.”

He scrubbed a hand harshly over his face. “This is stupid. _I’m_ stupid. Not sure what Aid thought I could do besides screw it up again. I’ll just-- I’ll tell him this isn’t working.”

Swerve made to stand, but it had seemed as though Rung’s fingers had locked over his, holding him there.

“Rung?” he’d asked. “Rung, can you hear me? Did you just move?”

No response, but those almost dead fingers didn’t release his hand.

He sank back down. “Um. Okay. I… guess I’ll stay a little longer. Hey, did I tell you about…”

At several points over the next few days he had nearly fallen asleep, but each time he’d jerked himself back to consciousness with a little cry of “I’m awake! I’m good!” By the fifth day, he was convinced he was starting to see things. By the sixth, his throat ached and his voice sounded rusted as he hauled more words out of an uncooperative vocalizer, searching for the combination that would bring Rung back.

After one hundred and forty-seven hours, something had worked.

Rung had twitched, a single sharp, jerky motion. Swerve froze as the twitch took hold, becoming a whole movement. Slowly, almost gracefully, Rung lifted his hand and tentatively placed a trembling finger over the bartender’s lips. Though he still hadn’t turned his helm, Swerve got the distinct impression that Rung was looking at him and there was a waver to his field that Swerve almost mistook for concern.

“First Aid!” he’d yelled. “Rung’s moving!”

The medic had rushed him out of the room to check on the psychiatrist, and the next time he saw Rung, it was when Rewind came to him to request the use of the bar, a request he’d immediately agreed to. At several point he wished he hadn’t, though it was always after one of Rewind’s teams wrecked the bar, again. Between attempts, and when he wasn’t in the medibay, Rung had been stashed behind the bar. It struck Swerve as intensely wrong, that such a bot should be shoved aside with so little thought, like some broken serving droid. He’d almost cried when Rung spoke. The psychiatrist had been only infrequently present in the bar, but Swerve had been familiar enough with his voice to recognize it. It was a relief to hear it again, especially with First Aid warning that they were likely running out of time to pull Rung out of his own head.

After the incident with the Shoomer on Temptoria, Swerve had gotten the news that Rung was fully recovered and back to work. It had been a week or two since then. They still hadn’t seen each other, much less talked about what happened that day in Rung’s office. Swerve had been having nightmares since the incident, and all in the same theme. He’d fire the shot, Rung would fall, and then Rung would get back up. The nightmare bot would say the things Rung couldn’t say to him, which Swerve felt was perfectly justifiable, have a nice day. With one shot, not only had he nearly killed the ship’s psychiatrist, but he’d cut off that avenue of help for every other bot on the ship. He figured having nightmares was a softer sentence than he deserved.

Though, in the moment, that didn’t make them easier to have, especially not as he stared at Red Alert’s empty berth, as if he could somehow will the big bot into the room. After a long moment-- he wasn’t sure _how_ long-- Swerve swung his legs over the edge of the berth and slid off, hitting the floor harder than he expected. He staggered towards the door, caught himself against it, and palmed it open, scrubbing a hand over his face. The ship would be mostly deserted at this hour of the night cycle, manned by a skeleton crew, but that at least was preferable to the guaranteed solitude of his habsuite.

Swerve wandered through the empty halls of the ship, helm down, optics slightly unfocused. Everything was blurry, and he wasn’t sure if it was due to exhaustion or the tears that kept teasing him with the prospect of falling. Time seemed just as blurry; he couldn’t have said whether he walked for five minutes or five hours before a noise broke through the fog.

He jerked his helm up, glancing around in a frantic attempt to remember where he was. This part of the ship wasn’t familiar to him, but the figure in front of him was, and that gave him enough information to figure out the rest. His feet had carried him into an isolated part of the ship, primarily occupied by the one bot he’d been intent on avoiding: Rung.

The psychiatrist turned away from his office door panel and took two steps before he seemed to realize he wasn’t alone. “Oh! Swerve.” He actually smiled. But then, psychiatrists were supposed to be good at that. “I wanted to talk to you.”

If any other bot had been in front of him, Swerve was pretty sure this would have been the part where he died. Since it was Rung, he was probably about to be politely verbally executed.

“Yeah?” he managed. “It’s kinda late, Doc, I was heading back to the hab--”

Rung cut him off. “How are you?”

“Wha?” Swerve said.

“How are you?” The psychiatrist’s eyebrows lowered a fraction and drew together, dropping his expression into one of careful concern as he explained. “I heard about what happened on Temptoria-- are you alright?”

“You-- heard about that?”

Rung nodded and waited patiently for an answer, staying where he was by the door.

Swerve shuffled a half-step forward so he wouldn’t have to raise his voice as much. “Uh-- yeah, I’m-- I’m good, got my face back and everything.”

The psychiatrist’s shoulders drooped, like he’d either sighed in relief or was incredibly disappointed. “Oh, that’s good. What happened, if you don’t mind me asking? I only heard that you’d been injured.”

He took another awkward step forward. “Yeah, word of advice, don’t handle Brainstorm’s experimental weapons, _especially_ if Whirl thinks they still smell new. Big mistake. I got the wrong end of the Shoomer, which was basically the--” Swerve caught himself. “One of the worst experiences of this quest.”

“Unusual name for one of Brainstorm’s weapons. Why is it called the Shoomer?”

Swerve grinned. “‘Cause that’s the noise it makes when it takes your face off.”

Rung blinked. The light shining through his lenses briefly dimmed, the only indication he’d moved at all, and Swerve realized he should _not_ have said that.

“Uh-- I mean--”

Rung waved it away with a little gesture that reminded Swerve almost painfully of the first time he’d moved. “No, it’s alright. It just surprised me.”

“Great. Uh, good.” Slag, was he shaking? “So, uh. How’s-- how’s work? Doing good? Back at it?”

“Yes, I’ve adjusted, and I’m catching up. Thank you for asking.” He smiled, biolights softening. “And apart from Temptoria, I hope you’re doing well?”

“Oh yeah, I’m--” Swerve swallowed, intake tubing constricting uncomfortably. “Great, you know-- doing one hundred and fifty percent, living my best life…” He laughed, high-pitched and awkward, and felt Rung’s field brush out against his before retreating. When had he gotten so close to the psychiatrist?

Rung extended a hand, but left it closer to himself than to Swerve in an invitation, not a command. “Would you like to come in? It feels like there’s something on your mind.”

“Who, me?” Swerve waved it off, both hands flapping nervously in front of his chest. “Nah, I’m all good, Doc! I never have anything on my mind, I’m good! Never better, so I’m just gonna go away and let you--”

“Swerve.”

His mouth snapped shut.

Rung reached out a little further, hand palm up and fingers relaxed. “Please?”

Swerve almost took his hand. Almost. Instead he shuffled forward in something of a daze, still murmuring half-processed excuses too soft to be heard. Rung stepped back and palmed the door open. The lightest pressure against his backplates guided Swerve towards the sofa; Rung followed him as the overhead lights slowly came back up to full power. The window had been repaired and the office had been put back in order, though several pieces of unused furniture or equipment were still covered in a thin film of dust.

Rung touched his shoulder to draw his attention. “Can I get you anything?”

“Uh?” he replied. “Nah, I’m-- I’m okay.”

Again he felt the brush of Rung’s field against his as the psychiatrist stepped away to his desk and retrieved a pair of cubes, one of which he placed within the bartender’s reach.

“In case you change your mind,” he explained with a smile as he took a seat in the chair next to Swerve and set down his own cube.

The minibot gestured to their placement. “Isn’t this, uh, kinda awkward for you, Doc?”

“You’re welcome to move,” Rung rushed to assure him. “I didn’t mean anything by it-- I’m not intending to make you my patient.”

“Thanks,” he muttered, fumbling for the cube in search of a distraction.

They fell into painful silence for a while. Swerve wasn’t searching for eye contact, and he didn’t even want to glance up to see if Rung was. Eventually he spoke, at the same time Rung opened his mouth.

“First Aid--”

“Swerve, I--”

The bartender gestured for him to continue, and Rung demurred. Swerve reset his vocalizer and tried again.

“First Aid said you probably wouldn’t remember.”

Rung uncrossed his legs and leaned forward enough to appear engaged. “Remember what?”

“The, um. The incident.” Swerve forced himself to look up, gaze settling on a point by Rung’s antennae, which slicked back a few degrees. “With the-- with Fort Max, and your, uh, head.”

He sighed. “Rodimus… told me what happened, but you’re right, I don’t remember much of it. I remember being-- I remember what happened just before, and I remember seeing Max fall, but after that, there’s nothing.”

Swerve swallowed, fighting against what felt like a disproportionately large lump in his intake tubing. So Rung _did_ know. “He said you wouldn’t-- wouldn’t remember the recovery, either.”

He really hoped not. He’d talked to Rung like a-- like a _friend,_ not someone he’d shot, and it was going to be so awkward if Rung remembered anything about it, especially since Rung had some very good reasons to hate him. A few months of reasons.

“But I do.”

“Uh-- what?”

The glow behind Rung’s lenses dimmed momentarily and when his optics returned to full power, his gaze was directed right at Swerve. “I do remember some of it. I remember you being in the medibay quite often.”

“Oh?” he squeaked.

Rung nodded, idly tracing a finger over the rim of his cube, brow furrowed. “I remember you coming in to talk to me, but the details are so fuzzy.” He glanced away from the cube, up to Swerve. “First Aid told me you were there for almost a week.”

“Until you moved, yeah.” Swerve’s voice was thick and rough as he forced the words out of a vocalizer that seemed intent on shutting him up. He recognized the signs and ignored them; he was determined not to cry in front of Rung.

The psychiatrist smiled, looking warm and gentle, and Swerve’s vents caught painfully. “I remember your tone better than I do your words. It felt like you cared so much, like you were talking _with_ me instead of _at_ me, and even in that state, I appreciated it. It certainly seems to have sped up my recovery.”

“So if you appreciated it, why did you try to shut me up?” Swerve blurted out. He immediately froze, optical focusing rings snapping to their widest setting. Tensors tightened, preparing him for a swift movement in the exact opposite direction as Rung.

But Rung didn’t so much as twitch. “I was worried you were going to damage your vocalizer,” he replied, voice lined in soft concern instead of anger or irritation.

“Wha-- you were basically dead and _you_ were worried about _me?”_

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I have been?”

Beads of optical cleanser began to well up under Swerve’s visor. “I mean-- well--” He scrunched up his face, trying to deter the tears from falling with little success. Rung wasn’t supposed to _care_ about him! Vaulted _Heights--_ he’d only gone in because he was hoping Rung would just get it over and yell at him, not-- not _comfort_ him. Swerve shoved his visor up, dashed a hand across his optics, and let the visor fall back into place. A fresh set of tears immediately sprang up to replace what he’d just gotten rid of, and he was painfully aware of the beginnings of a tremble in his bottom lip. He-- slag, he’d told himself he wasn’t going to cry!

“No, it’s alright,” Rung murmured as he rose, abandoning his chair for a place at Swerve’s side, and Swerve abruptly realized he’d been speaking out loud. The rush of mortification served to stifle his tears.

The psychiatrist hovered his fingers over the minibot’s and smiled with a gentleness Swerve felt he didn’t deserve. “May I?”

At a loss, Swerve nodded, and the slim hand Ratchet had spent hours repairing and repainting brushed against his wrist and carefully glided up his arm. The whole time, Swerve could feel Rung’s field hanging open and loose around them, flowing through his own and seeking affirmatives for every touch. Rung slowly gathered the minibot to his side and set to running a hand lightly over his cowl.

Swerve was close to sitting on his hands to keep himself from grabbing for the psychiatrist and hugging at him like a pillow. He sniffled in probably the most embarrassingly pathetic way and felt Rung’s field lurch forward.

“You, um. You don’t have to do this,” he managed, hating how weak his voice was. Rung was the one with the right to be crying, not him, but Rung was calm and gentle and his thumb had settled in by his shoulder and was rubbing away at the tension in his lines. It felt good, but deep in his spark it _ached,_ because he did not deserve it.

“You’re hurting,” Rung replied, and that was all it took.

Sobbing out a flood of apologies, Swerve fell forward into him, thick fingers clutching desperately at his wheelpack.

Rung took the weight easily. “It’s alright, it’s alright,” he murmured. “I forgive you.”

“Don’t _say_ that!” Swerve wailed. “Don’t say that, I know you can’t mean it!”

“I _do_ mean it.” His hand smoothed over the minibot’s backplates, offering support and easing tweaked wires. “I know you never intended to shoot me. It’s alright.”

Another irritating sniffle and Swerve hid his face between Rung’s narrow chestplates, staring down at his sparkglass as hot tears dripped down his nose to stain the metal below him. “No it _isn’t._ Nothing about it is alright.”

“Swerve.” Rung slipped off his glasses and tossed them onto the table, pushing gently at the bartender’s shoulder. “Swerve, please look at me.”

Swerve picked his face up and forced himself to briefly meet Rung’s optics. It was the first time he’d actually seen them uncovered, and it was jarring. All throughout his recovery, the glasses had been in place, some weak attempt to normalize the situation, but it only made it weirder. Rung hadn’t had a use for the lenses in that state, and they’d only served as a filter to make other bots more comfortable.

But having that filter removed now didn’t make things easier. Rung’s uncovered optics coupled with his already impressive eyebrows made for an incredibly piercing gaze, flooded with-- with…

Swerve snuck another glance. Those optics weren’t angry, they were filled with soft concern and… warmth?

Rung smiled, corners of those not-angry optics crinkling, and offered him a cleaning cloth from his subspace. “You did hurt me, yes. It’s not helpful to pretend it didn’t happen. But I know you didn’t mean to, and you have thoroughly apologized for it, both with your words and your actions. In fact, I’m only functional again because of you, and for that I have to thank you.”

“No you don’t,” Swerve blurted out.

“Yes, I do,” Rung insisted, laying a hand back over the bartender’s wrist. “You spent nearly a week with me, talking with me, trying to draw me back out of my own head. One week of staying at my side, trying to help me. And that’s not even touching on you lending the bar to Rewind-- more time when you could have been doing anything else but trying to help me.”

“What else was I supposed to do?” Swerve muttered. “It was my _fault._ I’m-- Primus--”

“Awful? A terrible person?” the psychiatrist guessed.

It was good to hear him say it out loud, even if he didn’t sound like he meant it, and Swerve nodded vehemently.

Rung shook his head. “You aren’t. Swerve, you _aren’t_ a bad person.”

Swerve felt a small wall of _genuine/sincere/not lying_ brush against his field as Rung continued.

“You made a mistake, yes. Your aim was off, yes. But your intentions were good, and I cannot and _will_ not fault you for that. You did hurt me, but you didn’t mean to, and you were the one who made my recovery possible.”

He started to do what he did best: downplay. “Nah, that was Ratchet and Aid--”

“They rebuilt my head,” Rung cut in. “You helped me out of it. Being whole means nothing if I can’t use it.”

Swerve didn’t realize he was worrying the cleaning cloth between his hands until Rung gently tugged it away from him and gestured with it to the tears still clinging to his cheeks and seeping out from under his visor.

“May I?”

Feeling on the verge of slipping completely into shock, Swerve nodded and let himself be dried like some newframe by hands that should not have been that gentle.

Rung smiled tenderly at him as he mopped up the tears that stubbornly refused to stop falling. “Thank you for saving me, Swerve.”

His engine hiccuped pitifully. “But it was my fault.”

“Yes, it was. But--”

Rung paused and reset his vocalizer, and when Swerve glanced up, he realized the psychiatrist had gone misty-eyed as well. His field lurched forward in a clumsy imitation of Rung’s attempts at comfort, brushing up against him and drawing out a small, sweet smile.

“Hey, Rung? You, uh-- you okay?” Swerve kicked himself as soon as the words left his vocalizer. Of course Rung wasn’t okay, what a stupid--

“Yes, I am.” He paused again. “But you’ve been beating yourself up over this since it happened, and you don’t need to be. It’s alright to forgive yourself. It’s time-- past time, in fact.” He slid the cleaning cloth back into his subspace, brushed a hand over his optics, and looked back at Swerve. “Will you try to?”

“Yeah,” Swerve mumbled, knowing he wouldn’t. “Sure.”

Rung took gentle hold of his hand and gave it a little squeeze. “Thank you.”

He shrugged and ducked his head, bumping his forehelm against Rung’s chest plates. The psychiatrist hummed out something close to a laugh as Swerve unintentionally settled in, awkwardly sandwiching his hands between Rung’s stomach and his own chest. Feeling surprisingly safe in his odd huddle, worn out by the tears, and with one of Rung’s arms sliding into a comfortably familiar position around his shoulders, Swerve felt himself starting to nod off. The vibrations of Rung’s field stilled around him.

Swerve’s head fell forward and his face knocked against the psychiatrist’s sparkglass. It was warm and faintly buzzing under his cheek, growing in intensity as Rung powered back up from his near-sleep.

“Oh-- Swerve--” Rung tapped at his shoulder. “Swerve, dear, please don’t fall asleep here. I won’t be able to move you.”

Swerve’s hands curled against Rung’s stomach, trying to pull him closer but completely missing their target. “‘m awake,” he mumbled.

He managed to haul himself up a bit before he slumped back down against Rung. The impact knocked them both sideways, caught by the arm Rung flung out against the couch. Swerve’s face collided with a protruding bit of plating; it jolted him awake and he sprang up off of the psychiatrist, babbling out a second round of apologies.

Rung simply laughed and let Swerve help him up. He left his hand where it was, fingers entwined with Swerve’s. “It’s alright, there’s nothing to forgive. No harm done. Would you like me to walk you back to your hab?”

He almost said no. But that would mean he’d have to walk back alone, and he wanted to do that even less than he wanted Rung to walk him back, because either way he’d end up alone in his hab, staring at Red Alert’s empty berth and torn between wishing for sleep and hoping he didn’t.

After a moment of silence that felt longer than it was, Rung spoke again. “Swerve?” He brushed out over his field. “Would you rather stay here? I do have a few blankets and, well… I can confirm that the couch is more than comfortable enough to sleep on.”

“Yeah, okay.” Swerve swallowed down another lump in his intake tubing. “Wait, that-- that’s allowed?”

The psychiatrist gave him another sweet smile. “One of the perks of having your own office is that you can decide what to do with it. Would you grab the blankets, please? They’re in the bottom drawer of my desk, on the left.”

He nodded and stumbled off to retrieve them as Rung set about adjusting the couch to accommodate two sleeping forms.

After a minute of rifling around in the drawer, Swerve held up a pair of blankets for inspection. “Hey, Rung?” The name felt odd in his mouth, like something he shouldn’t have been allowed to say. “Are these it?”

“Mm?” He glanced up. “Yes, that’s it. And grab the last one in the drawer too, please. It’s the softest.”

The bartender came back over with his armload of fluff as Rung pushed a last pillow into place. In a few minutes, he’d transformed a clinical couch into a comfy little nest. All it was missing was its occupants and the blankets Rung took from Swerve.

“Are you comfortable with me being here?”

Swerve looked up. Rung hadn’t put his glasses back on and the resulting slight squint made him look so gentle and vulnerable as he stood there clutching a pile of blankets to his chest. He was once again hit with the urge to just hug him and hold him, as if that would somehow actually make things right between them. He knew it was selfish, and held himself back.

“Yeah, I’m-- I’m fine with it. Just-- sorry, I’m just really tired.” Despite his best efforts, Swerve felt a little pulse of _lonely/sadness/longing_ lurch into his field, and again, Rung’s field swirled around them.

“Go on, settle in,” Rung urged him, nudging him with the blankets. “I’ll stay here.”

Swerve sank wordlessly onto the couch and reached up uselessly for a blanket just as Rung tossed one over him. It hit him in the face and tangled around his arm; he was so tired he barely recognized what had happened until Rung freed him.

“Oh dear, are you alright?”

“Huh? Yeah, just… tired…” Swerve located Rung’s hand and tugged gently. “C’mere?”

Rung steadied himself against Swerve’s arm and slipped in next to him. “Alright.”

He settled back incrementally against Swerve, pressing his shoulder against his chest for a moment or two, pulling up a touch, and leaning further into him than before until he was fully pressed against him. He provided a weight that Swerve would have been all too happy to grow accustomed to and a warmth that was just as welcome.

Despite himself, Swerve wanted that warmth closer.

“Is this alright?” Rung glanced up at him, gently worried. “I’m not leaning on you too much, am I?”

“Nah, you’re good.” He hesitated and wiggled his arm up between Rung’s back and the back of the couch. “Can I…?” He made a looping gesture around Rung’s waist.

“Of course.”

Rung was just so damnably polite and for a moment Swerve felt absolutely hideous for taking advantage of it. There was no way Rung actually wanted the bartender clinging to him like this. He draped his arm over Rung’s slender waist-- hovered it over him, really, barely touching him. Rung reached up, laced his fingers with Swerve’s, and pulled his arm down, settling it comfortably around his waist.

Rung was the first to fall asleep, vents swiftly equalizing and pushing tiny gusts of warmed air over Swerve’s chest plates. Swerve held himself as still as possible, hardly daring to vent himself for fear of disturbing the psychiatrist. Rung’s field relaxed entirely, falling over them like an additional blanket, and every vibration and pulse of it spoke of his comfort and ease around Swerve.

Hesitantly he lifted a hand to the back of the little mech’s helm, desperately hoping Rung would remain asleep. He brushed a finger along the seams, marking out each in memory. Rebuilt. Back in one piece. Functioning. Rung shifted, pressing his helm into the palm of Swerve’s hand. Slowly, guided by the vents of someone who’d forgiven him and the ridges of his helm, Swerve fell into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.


End file.
